Filner may fight to last bullet

We didn’t get to see the faces of Bob Filner’s accusers. Not yet. But we do have some catchy metaphors to enter into San Diego’s political lexicon.

The Filner Headlock. The Filner Dance.

As the high-heeled shoes continue to drop, I find myself replaying this variant on a classic American denial:

“I did not have sexual harassments with those women.”

In his downcast confession last week, Mayor Filner owned up to offenses so grievous that they demanded his abject apology, a plea for help and a promise of sexual harassment training.

But in subsequent statements, he’s claimed he is innocent of sexual harassment — and expects to be cleared by an investigation.

What?

This parsing of guilt — I’ve been a serially offensive guy but not a legally exposed mayor — is Clintonism at its most sophistical. The meaning of is is, well, murky.

Just as the former president tried to argue that one kind (his kind) of sex was not really sexual relations, Filner is positing that his form of sexually charged impropriety, which he has freely admitted, is not really sexual harassment.

Which raises the question: Does this lawyerly distinction trump the graphic allegations doled out by the self-righteous Star Chamber of the Left — judges (and juries) Donna Frye, Marco Gonzalez and Cory Briggs — at their second news conference in five days?

Signaling his defiance, however, Filner is restocking his office with fresh talent. In an announcement that stole some of the thunder of the Frye news conference, the mayor anointed the well-respected Walt Ekard as the city’s de facto city manager. In another sign that he’s digging in, Filner’s former congressional chief of staff in Washington flew in Sunday to offer disciplined support.

I remember losing a dinner at Alfonso’s to a friend in 1998 after betting that Clinton would resign after the source of the stained dress was revealed.

I’m not ready to make that same bet again.

As San Diegans have known for decades, Filner’s battle-scarred skin could be used to plate an armadillo.

To him, the only thing worse than quitting would be giving his former allies the satisfaction of forcing him out of office on their schedule, not his.

If Filner does eventually resign, don’t put it past him to put off his departure until January, thus delaying the election until June 2014.

To a political animal, there’s no reason to quit other than shame, an emotion that I suspect he can compartmentalize.

And if there is a recall election, expensive and difficult as it would be to pull off, Filner’s a relentless (and undefeated) campaigner who could rally voters south of I-8, the base that for decades has seen him as a fighter for them.

In reality, Filner was never truly loved by those who are now abandoning him in droves.

In the mayoral election, San Diego’s Democratic players endorsed Filner and went through the motions, but it was clear to anyone watching the body language and following the local union money carefully that he was not the first choice.

He was the Big Crude Foot, pushing mainstream Dems aside to run for the highest local office. Like a blend of Robert Kennedy and Don Rickles, he’s high-minded (a youthful Freedom Rider jailed in the Deep South) and abrasive at the same time, a terrible sufferer of fools. Even his friends, those who share his progressive vision and believe he’s been good for the city, find him a pain in the gluteus maximus.

Many are predicting that we’re close to the end of Frye’s “nightmare,” that Filner will surrender in hours or days. How can he withstand this heat? I’m sure office pools have been formed over the date of his resignation.

Filner may be a dirty old man with grandiose appetites. He may even be a sick man who’s getting sicker. But the old Freedom Rider is not a pol who shrinks from a fight.

If I had to bet, I’d say Filner won’t leave the Alamo until every bullet has been fired.